Section 77: Enforcing the requirement laid on a parent or guardian

Firm annotation

This provision, in Book 1 within the Title on Criminal Liability, is the enforcement mechanism for the supervision requirement the court may lay down under section 74 (2) on a father, mother, guardian, or the person with whom the child resides. If the child commits an act of mischief within the period of that requirement, the court may enforce payment of a sum not exceeding the amount stated in it, and if that person does not pay, may order their property seized to satisfy it. Section 77 reaches only the section 74 (2) requirement and none of the other measures in section 74: neither the committal of the child to a school, a training and instruction institution or a mental guidance institution under (3), nor the delivery of the child to such person or organisation as the court thinks fit under the third paragraph. It confers no power to vary the conditions either: that power is in the last paragraph of section 74, which section 77 mentions only as the exception that would end the requirement. The section operates only where a section 74 measure was already imposed, and it does not create a separate offence.